A Demonstrative Case Study of Minibus Assembly under GiMS

Assembly islands with fixed-position layout refers to a configuration in which the product remains at a fixed site and requires workers moving among different islands. This kind of production pattern is widely applied in heavy industrial manufacturing. However, due to the complexity and highly dynamic level of material and manpower flows, it is difficult to manage the production process in fixed-position assembly island. Graduation intelligent Manufacturing System (GiMS) is viewed as a promising system for tackling production with high complexity and uncertainty. To explore the application of GiMS in fixed product (minibus) assembly. This paper presents a demonstrative case study of minibus assembly under GiMS. IoT technologies are adopted to create smart manufacturing environment, and cloud-based services are developed for facilitating decision-making and daily operation. In addition, the implementation of three kinds of smart tickets in the case gives an explicit illustration of how it works.